Listing the value of bees, beavers and others on the pages of the world's financial press helps to show that ecosystems deliver benefits worth staggering amounts of money - yet we scarcely keep track of it.

We bailed out the banks – our food is worth even more, but working out exactly how much more is tricky.
Louise Docker/Wikimedia CommonsMarch 5, 2015

Is it worth trying to put a price on the natural world, when things like water and food are priceless? Yes, says Paul Sutton - without knowing the value of the environment, we might not value it at all.

Executive Director, Pacific Biodiversity Institute; Affiliate Professor, University of Washington at Bothell; Research Associate, University of Cape Town (ACDI and FitzPatrick Institute), University of Cape Town

Professor of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg; Research Associate, Stellenbosch University; Professor of Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University